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Singing Hallelujah

Some of us having been doing a fair amount of crying this week. Our candidate lost. Leonard Cohen died. And last night Saturday Night Player, Kate McKinnon, sings Hallelujah, and channels Leonard Cohen through the image of our losing candidate, Hillary Clinton. If you look at the above frame from the end of Cohen’s song, Hallelujah, you can see the tears in Kate McKinnon (as Hillary Clinton’s) eyes. But why was Kate McKinnon crying? Why do any of us cry?

There are three major types of tears: basal, reflex, and psychic explains Joseph Stromberg of the Smithsonian College of Arts and Sciences. Basal tears are released continuously in tiny quantities to keep the cornea lubricated. Reflex tears are secreted in response to an irritant, like dust, onion vapors or tear gas. The psychic tear is initiated by a wide range of extreme feelings, whether positive or negative.

Tears also show others that we’re vulnerable, and vulnerability is critical to human connection. “The same neuronal areas of the brain are activated by seeing someone emotionally aroused as being emotionally aroused oneself,” says Michael Trimble, a behavioral neurologist at University College London and the foremost expert in the sciences of tears. “There must have been some point in time, evolutionarily, when the tear became something that automatically set off empathy and compassion in another. Actually being able to cry emotionally, and being able to respond to that, is a very important part of being human.”

“We learn early on that crying has this really powerful effect on other people,” Rottenberg says. “It can neutralize anger very powerfully,” which is part of the reason he thinks tears are so integral to fights between lovers—particularly when someone feels guilty and wants the other person’s forgiveness. “Adults like to think they’re beyond that, but I think a lot of the same functions carry forth,” he says.

The research on psychic tears is still in its infancy, but the mysteries of tears—and the recent evidence that they’re far more important than scientists once believed Ad Vingerhoets , PhD, a psychology professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands drives a small cadre of tear to keep at it.

David is an award winning movie maker and author. Most notably, he is the former President of Paramount Pictures and the former Production President of Walt Disney Pictures. He is the Co-Founder of the MIT Center For Future Storytelling. His interests include storytelling, technology, and understanding the stuff that happens behind the curtain. His new project is a series of novels on Merlin.

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